In early
1992 my friends and I launched
the American pre-paid phone card industry forcing long distance to
soon be almost free.
I started
at beginning with company that invented the industry and the
financial model of "Pre-Paid":
AmeriVox.
The German Supreme Court requested my presence to testify
as
an expert witness in 2012 to settle a huge patent dispute.
The evidence I provided was key to winning a telecom patent lawsuit over who
started the prepaid phone card technology.
The legal team and I proved the phone card was invented by the company I
launched over 20 years ago,
AmeriVox.
We broke
the
patent claim of telecom giant IDT. The victory in this precedent setting case allows anyone to produce
and sell any brand of phone card
they want throughout the entire European Union. Pictures of that
adventure are here.
I developed two
groundbreaking cutting edge web technologies. One was an early
Facebook in 1996 and an early Twitter in 1999.
I've always specialized in internet lead generation, data and relationship
marketing. Now in my 21st web year, I'm a pioneer of internet marketing
over social networks, telecom, email and video.
Our
early deployment of the prepaid phone card was the prime cause the rapid decrease in long
distance rates from 1992 to 1996.
My 8,000
member sales team sold
millions of phone cards and changed communication forever. We were
the deregulating force
that made long distance calls cheap and
now almost free. A true disruption technology spread by the
people to the people.
______________________
In early 2007 I assembled a team
of world class marketers to launch and fund new companies via video: The Branding Foundry.
Late 2007 to 2010 - Formed
SpokesGuide.com - This company gave the name to the video walkouts
on webpages. We shot actors against green screens and they would show up
on web pages outside of the video box. We hired the actors, wrote the
scripts, produced, directed and shot the scenes for scores of American
businesses to make their websites come alive with a Video Guide who was
their Spokes Person. Today we've
migrated to the Motion Graphics style which
you can see here.
2008 - Connected the matchmaking to fund
MicroBlend Technologies. MicroBlend is changing the way
house paint is created and sold worldwide. When the company came to us,
they were in a couple of mom and pop hardware stores and badly needed
massive funding. Now with more than 40
million dollars in funding and with the right people on their board, they are in large retailers
and are on their way to becoming our second global success story
in disruption technology, much
like the AmeriVox phone card was to long distance calling. A big
expansion program is currently going on in Colombia.
Our
third disruption technology that will change the way fuel burns in
engines and how they are cooled is: Plasma Drive.
Disruptive technology number four is being created by a team lead by
John Searl. See an excerpt from
my interview with them.
In 1992 I started using emerging new technology to
communicate
and grow a large AmeriVox sales
team. I recruited
salespeople through the earliest use affiliate websites, business data,
broadcast fax, broadcast email and very primitive predictive dialers.
These very first affiliate websites date back to early 1992 and
were spawned off the BBS system. It was truly groundbreaking.
Clients like 3M
sold Post-It notes used our customized phone cards
as premiums and incentives.
We had exclusive worldwide licensing deals with Elvis Presley, JFK,
Norman Rockwell, Wyland, and dozens of other celebrities.
In 1996
I formed first pure
Internet company, FIRST Technologies, Inc.
Partnered with developer DC Wiseman, to create
the first interactive, self generating websites where sales people
could upload their pictures and info creating their own webpages.
They also had their own branded web mail accounts and interacted in
chatrooms and message boards enabling any sales group
to become a virtual community. It was a precursor to Facebook, but
built exclusively for sale teams.
The FIRST Technologies software was demonstrated to the current CEO of Microsoft,
Steve Ballmer, in early 1996.
It was VERY favorably received with great enthusiasm by Ballmer and
may have inspired certain
products you see today out of Redmond,
right here next to Kirkland -
where I live today.
I talk about the last
5 years of my Sales, Branding and Biz Video Experiences in the movie
above
The above video is
about my 20 year marketing career on
the web, the one below is much more exciting.
Camped for 5 days at 10,000 feet on Rainier, in the winter, to train for Denali.
Climbed Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska in
2004, then again in 2006
leading an expedition.
2000 - Formed
LeadProducers to provide
mortgage leads to mortgage bankers.
1999
- The Federal Group, Woodinville, WA
Business Development
Co-created a web-based
system to sell/list property and acquire/manage
new real estate
and mortgage leads.
1998 Gettuit.com Kirkland, WA
Co-Founder and Director of Product
Development
Conceived and produced a online directory of Mortgage, Real Estate and Financial service
providers. Hired the programmers and managed the source code development/strategic
relations of this online exchange.
Site was designed to facilitate instantaneous sharing of leads
(referrals) among mortgage brokers
and real estate agents. Messages and the actual leads would be sent to/from
any device, such as office/home phone, e-mail, fax, pda or cell phone. Each member had
ability to create/manage their own targeted lists.
Proprietary CRM functionality was embedded into their personally created websites. From
the site, members could send messages, via the web, in their own voice to multiple devices
and group lists that recipients opted into from the site of the member.
Members communications data stayed real-time correct. Recipients could change/delete
devices and contact data via web. The future system would follow member via time and
geographic position. System carried the viral message of the client company as a written
or verbal tagline like Hotmail tags a signature line to rapidly promote the
creation of another user.
Designed and maintained the company’s first website
Established the first email servers and co-created dozens of product names and their
related URL’s
Discovered the channel and gave the first presentation
to
procure the lead billionaire investor who funded a portion of the
6.5 million company raised with 2.5 million dollars and got the
ball rolling.
Interviewed several potential CTO’s, found/hired the first salespeople, first IT
people, many more.
Participated in the initial product positioning, pricing and branding, as well as the
first executable demo with Hornall-Anderson.
Gettuit would have offered almost any online app or service as an
online rentable application, sparking the Microsoft.net
strategy.
Discovered and catalogued the first 250 application service providers, which became the
core
products presented in the company’s offering of integrated online service partners
Launched the company’s first commercial product,
a desktop client application, which linked to three online service
providers to integrate the process of finding a Realtor, a
property and a loan officer.
1997 NetroMedia Honolulu, Hawaii Owner
Founded company that built and hosted websites for Honolulu
mortgage companies
1997 World Wide Desk, Inc Kirkland, WA Owner
Co-founded Internet company
to offer online small business web services. Met with the top
executives of Costco to discuss the provisioning of business websites to
their Executive Club Member
base of several dozen million members.
Spent almost a year analyzing the needs of small business people
and how they could benefit
from the Internet. Primarily
focused on people in mortgage lending and real estate.
1996 FIRST Technologies, Inc. Kaneohe,
Hawaii Owner
Co-founded company that was formed to host sales organizations
whose members were able to create
web pages and communicate through branded email accounts linked to
the corporate master site.
More than 4,000 salespeople created their own unique sites and
email accounts. FIRST Technologies
wrote the code and private branded the package for use by
large sales teams.
This proprietary software was demonstrated to
an enthusiastic Steve Ballmer and
may have inspired certain MicroSoft products you use today.
This technology, created, over five
years ago, had the same core features as AOL, GeoCities,
theglobe.com and other early virtual communities. The
evolution of this technology became: Facebook.
These sites were extremely advanced at the time -- they were
web-based Intranets that could
duplicate themselves. Members sent/received internal/external
branded e-mail; used private imbedded
chat rooms and message boards; and could track new members in real
time.
These interactions,
tracking and control were based entirely within networks that we
created and hosted.
_____________________
A
very famous naval aviator:
Capt. Bill Span raised
me with an awesome mom
Irene.
Dad went supersonic in a Russian
MIG-29 and attracted major
media attention.
Attended the University of
North Carolina
on a football
scholarship. Graduated with a Bachelor
of Arts degree in 1978. Became a
Dive Instructor and U.S.
Coast
Guard certified Sea Captain. Sailed 30,000 miles throughout the
Pacific Oceanand the Caribbean and dove over 200 times deeper than 200 feet.
1978 - 1980 - Sailed out of
Newport Beach. Taught SCUBA and captained boats. Sailed
Baja, and southern Mexico with Maui charter guru Bruce Morse& the legendary schooner skipper Roy Wildman.
Recently some very old Super 8 film footage has surfaced from this
voyage that can be viewed here.
1980 - Captained 36' cutter to
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and back during a year long adventure.
1981 -
Captained 80' to 120' aluminum crew boats to oil rigs off Louisiana,
also stood by in case the wells would blow up like it recently did
at the DeepWater Horizon disaster.
1982 - 1983 - Captained a 55'
trimarran, SURVIVAL from Portobello, Panama toCozumel,
Mexico for Clive Kelly.
Tall Tales are told by Clive and I about those days
here. Taught scuba diving on this very interesting island while exploring
Mayan ruins, diving for black coral and salvaging Spanish shipwrecks.
Enjoyed the modern and ancient Mayan culture and became friends with
the native Mayan Indians and colorful characters of Cozumel and
Quintana Roo.
Stories are told here
about our sailing adventure and other tales of the legendary
Capt. Clive Kelly who inspired James Cameron to produce the movie "Waterworld"
after they spent time in the Caribbean.
1984 - Captained the
world’s fastest sailing vessel, the
SeaSmoke
out of Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.
1985 - Bought a 46’ catamaran
and sailed to
Kauai to teach diving and explore the North Shore of Kauai for the
newly formed Napali Coast Dive Expeditions.
Ran dives at Tunnels
Beach for Captain Zodiac.
1985 - Captained the 75'
schooner, Amazing Grace from Samoa to the Kingdom
of Tonga and back. Spent a month in the remote islands of the Ha'apai and Vavau
groups. See the captain, the crew and the beautiful islands of Tonga
here.
l986 - Joined Princeville
Realty Corp.Princeville,
Kauai, Hawaii, sold over $6 million dollars
of property on Kauai. Designed and built 3 custom homes in Kilauea, Kauai. After obtaining
my
Hawaii Real Estate Brokers license, became the Kauai affiliate of Hawaii Real Estate
Brokers,
a division of Jon Douglas Associates of Beverly Hills, CA.
Trained Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Steve Guttenberg and at least 10,000 others to SCUBA
during career. Spent three days diving with Bruce Willisand family. Took him 140 feet deep
at the forbidden Island of Niihau.
1992 to 1995 -
Was one
of the first people in America to market a prepaid phonecard.
Started
at beginning with company that invented the industry:
AmeriVox.
Sold over 20 million dollars of phone cards through my 8,000 member sales team.
Acquired and handled several celebrity royalty accounts. My biggest client, sumo
wrestler Konishiki was 625 lbs.
1996 - Formed first pure
Internet company, FIRST Technologies, Inc.
Partnered with software developer
to create the first interactive, self generating websites targeted at members of large
sales teams.
This technology enabled any sales group to become a virtual
community.
The software was demonstrated to the current
top executive of Microsoft,
Steve Ballmer, in early 1996. It was very favorably received
and inspired
certain
products you see today.
I was living inTantalus
Oahu, Hawaii at an elevation of 2,000 feet in a
tropical rainforest until
the internet boom of 1997 brought me to Kirkland, Washington - near Seattle.
